An EU official in Georgia has said that the country's proposed 'foreign agents' bill unacceptable and that adoption of the bill would create a very serious obstacle to Georgia joining the bloc. Gert Jan Koopman, director general of the European Commission's enlargement directorate, said the Georgian government still has time to change course. Security forces used water cannon, teargas, stun grenades and rubber bullets to break up a peaceful rally against the bill on Wednesday night (May 1). The bill has heightened tensions in the polarised southern Caucasus country.

Levan Tsutskiridze, executive director of the Eastern European Centre for Multiparty Democracy, said in an update on the protests that "yesterday, our numbers surpassed any day before since we began to counteract the Russia-inspired 'transparency of foreign influence law,' known in Georgia as the 'Russian law'". The EU, which has granted Georgia candidate status, "strongly condemned" the violence and called on the government to respect the right of peaceful assembly.

Ministers from the G7 countries agreed to end the use of unabated coal power plants by 2035 - but left the door open for those heavily reliant on coal to breach the deadline. After two days of talks in Turin, Italy, they published a pledge to "phase out existing unabated coal power generation in our energy systems during the first half of 2030s" to curb the rise in global greenhouse gas emissions. The communique marks a key climate milestone for the G7 nations who had been unable to reach an agreement on phasing out coal after several years of talks.

Italian minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, who chaired the meeting, said: "It is the first time that a path and a target has been set on coal." The document refers to unabated coal, which leaves room for countries to keep burning coal to generate electricity if power plants are fitted with carbon-capture technology to stop emissions from entering the atmosphere.

Haiti's newly installed transitional council chose a little known former sports minister as the Caribbean country's prime minister as part of its monumental task of trying to establish a stable new government amid stifling violence. Fritz Bélizaire was chosen in a surprise move to replace current interim Prime Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert, gaining the support of four of the seven voting members on the nine-member panel but with other panel members saying they were unfamiliar with Bélizaire.

The council also planned to choose a Cabinet as it seeks to quell gang violence that is choking the capital, Port-au-Prince, and beyond. Heavy gunfire was reported in several of the capital's neighbourhoods during the council's meeting. More than 90,000 people have fled the capital in the span of one month, and overall, more than 360,000 people have been left homeless in recent years as gunmen raze communities in rival territories.

Eruptions at a remote Indonesian volcano have forced more than half a dozen airports to close with ash spreading as far as Malaysia, according to officials, while authorities rushed to evacuate thousands due to tsunami fears. Mount Ruang erupted three times on Tuesday, spewing lava and ash more than 5km (three miles) into the sky and forcing authorities to issue evacuation orders for 12,000 people.

A rescue ship and a warship were dispatched to help move thousands from neighbouring Tagulandang island north to Siau island because of a warning about parts of the volcano falling into the sea, potentially causing a tsunami. The country's meteorological agency, BMKG, shared a map on Wednesday morning that showed volcanic ash had reached as far as eastern Malaysia on Borneo island, which Malaysia shares with Indonesia and Brunei. The spread of volcanic ash forced seven airports to close, the biggest in provincial capital Manado and the city of Gorontalo.